{"id":362700,"date":"2025-01-19T17:40:23","date_gmt":"2025-01-19T16:40:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=362700"},"modified":"2025-01-19T17:40:25","modified_gmt":"2025-01-19T16:40:25","slug":"will-47-revive-the-u-s-mining-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=362700","title":{"rendered":"<\/font>Will 47 revive the U.S. mining industry?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From CFACT<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/font>By<\/font> Duggan Flanakin<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/font>Back in February 2022, the Biden-Harris Administration announced<\/a> its critical minerals strategy, which promised \u201cexpanding domestic production\u201d (in a timely manner!), but only after \u201censuring that \u201cour actions are community engagement standards,\u201d which include \u201cresponsible social, environmental, and labor standards.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This purportedly pro-mining stance was the Democratic response to a report<\/a> from the Commerce Department, prepared in response to President Trump\u2019s 2017 executive order 13817. \u201cA Federal Strategy to Ensure Secure and Reliable Supplies of Critical Minerals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report revealed just how dependent the U.S. was on hostile foreign governments for minerals designated as \u201ccritical\u201d by the U.S. Department of the Interior. The U.S. was at least 50% import-reliant for 31 of the 35 critical minerals and 100% import-reliant for 14 of them, including minerals found in abundance in U.S. soil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commerce called for advancing transformational R&D and deployment across critical mineral supply chains, strengthening those supply chains, and enhancing international trade and cooperation regarding critical minerals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S., it said, should conduct critical mineral resource assessments to support exploration and development of conventional, secondary, and unconventional sources for critical minerals; improve access to mineral resources on federal lands; reduce federal permitting timeframes; and grow the U.S. critical minerals workforce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short \u2013 this was a proactive plan to expedite and expand domestic production of critical minerals. By contrast, the 2022 Biden-Harris plan focused on beefing up the mining regulatory structure by establishing strong, responsible mining standards, conducting comprehensive planning, and replacing the Mining Law of 1872 \u2014 supposedly to \u201cprovide permitting certainty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To Biden-Harris, \u201csecuring a sustainable domestic supply of critical minerals\u201d meant \u201cenvironmentally and socially responsible mining and processing projects and other sustainable sources recycling and recovery from unconventional sources,\u201d with the highest priority (after special interest objections) being recycling and reuse \u2013 not actual mining.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another goal was a royalties program to enrich the federal treasury, while yet another was to \u201cestablish a hardrock mine reclamation program that might allow for \u201cresponsibly\u201d extracting minerals from legacy wastes to avoid \u201cthe need for additional greenfield mine development.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the kicker was the final recommendation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden-Harris focused not on aiding miners, but rather on \u201cbuilding civil service expertise\u201d to increase bureaucratic control over the industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What did Biden-Harris do next to \u201cexpand domestic production\u201d of critical minerals? Here\u2019s a small sample.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost immediately, Interior canceled two mineral leases held by Twin Metals Minnesota that contained about 88% of the nation\u2019s cobalt reserves in addition to copper, nickel, and platinum-group elements \u2013 all vital for favored green energy technologies. Months later, Biden announced a 20-year withdrawal<\/a> of 225,504 acres in northern Minnesota, the site of the Twin Metals project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four months later the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service announced<\/a> a plan to prohibit new mining claims in 20,574 acres in the Black Hills Forest in South Dakota. In response, Rep. Pete Stauber (R, MN) said that \u201cthese sorts of land restrictions from the anti-mining Biden Administration hamstring domestic development of minerals we need for national defense, energy technology, and everyday life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden, like his Democratic forebears, used the Antiquities Act and other federal laws to create new national parks and monuments, notably one that bars uranium mining<\/a> in Arizona and another intended to destroy Wyoming\u2019s coal mining industry. Biden\u2019s crippling of Alaska included shutting down oil drilling in ANWR and blocking oil, gas, and mining operations, including a copper mine others have deemed in the national interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, as David Blackmon reported in Forbes in July 2023, Biden balked on helping to jumpstart a project to develop the world\u2019s largest known rare-earth resource \u2013 the Tanbreez project on the coast of Greenland that Tanbreez Mining wanted to develop, possibly in cooperation with Chinese participation, rather than just let sit idle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just this week, Tanbreez CEO Greg Barnes related that the Biden State Department, while not offering any assistance, did lobby against any deal with the Chinese. New York-based Critical Metals, the new owner, hopes to mine a million metric tons per year of (rare-earths-containing) eudialyte beginning as early as 2026. No wonder President Trump is focused on Greenland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The return of Donald Trump to the Resolute Chair will mark a 180-degree turn in U.S. mining policy, many believe. One of the first items for business is final consideration of the bipartisan Energy Permitting Reform Act (EPRA) that the Senate Natural Resources Committee approved last July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The legislation, which streamlines permitting and restricts litigation timelines, would revamp the National Environmental Policy Act, a major impediment to \u201ctimely\u201d permitting. Under the 1970 law, securing final NEPA permits takes an average of 4.5 years, but 6.5 years for electrical transmission projects. But for mining projects, those timelines are much longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRight now, it takes anywhere from 10 to 30 years to build a mine, which is why we don\u2019t have a mining industry in America,\u201d Critical Minerals Institute director Melissa Sanderson told the<\/a> Epoch Times. Lawmakers hope for a final bill under which all agencies with a dog in the hunt have 90 days to raise issues and the applicant another 90 days to respond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Afterward, all parties would have two years to resolve all issues. The permit would be deemed approved unless it was denied within that time frame. The fast-permit process has the potential to jumpstart domestic mining and bring new revenues, jobs, and minerals availability to the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump is also expected to fulfill his campaign pledge to quickly reanimate the Twin Metals mine permits for a $1.7 billion project to extract copper, nickel, cobalt, and other minerals from its open pit mine in Minnesota and bring 850 jobs to an economically depressed community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Minerals consultant Gregory Wischer predicts<\/a> that the Trump Administration will focus heavily on domestic onshoring of all parts of the mineral supply chain, especially mineral extraction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile the Biden Administration\u2019s mineral policy \u2018heavily features international cooperation\u2019,\u201d Wischer says Trump will likely \u201csignificantly prioritize\u201d building more mines, processing facilities, and refineries in the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that, we believe, is just what the doctor ordered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article originally appeared at Town Hall<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in February 2022, the Biden-Harris Administration announced its critical minerals strategy, which promised \u201cexpanding domestic production\u201d (in a timely manner!), but only after \u201censuring that \u201cour actions are community engagement standards,\u201d which include \u201cresponsible social, environmental, and labor standards.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":362701,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691820710,691818931,691832710],"class_list":{"0":"post-362700","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-biden-harris-administration","9":"tag-critical-minerals","10":"tag-energy-permitting-reform-act-epra","12":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/0Screenshot-2025-01-19-173552.png?fit=1276%2C852&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1wm0","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":284186,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=284186","url_meta":{"origin":362700,"position":0},"title":"Milloy: Biden\u2019s Kamikaze Climate Plan for the US Economy","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"20\/10\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"First, China finally dropped its \u201cnet zero\u201d pose. 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